I don't really know how much the porting feature is used by developers. How many X-Box games are there for the PC, and how many PC games are there for the X-Box? I have a feeling that porting to the PC is not a big deal. It's nice but it probably doesn't impact business decisions. The types of games that sell on a PC are generally different from teh consoles. What's the best RTS for the X-Box? How about RPG?
I hope you realize that the Borg are superior to humans. Only reason they lost is due to some lame stories cooked up by the Star Trek authors who were pro-human;) A species based on assimilation will be extremely strong. Although, due to the their lack of diversity, one weakness will bring them all down.
I have been saying the same thing for a while (although in a much nicer tone:) ). Until you have games on the desktop, home users have little incentive to use Linux.
Having said that, you DO undervalue some apps. Things like office, web browser, etc are very important too.
The author is closer than many here believe him to be. I don't think the author is saying that EVERYONE needs to know EVERYTHING about computers. On the contrary. He is saying that people need to interact better and understand computers better. This does not mean that everyone should have the capability to create complex programs or that they should know the timing and refresh rates of RAM. To be literated, you don't need to read EVERY SINGLE book or understand every language. On the contrary.
All he is saying is that people need to be able to COMMUNICATE with the computer. Ironically, Microsoft is actuallying moving in this direction. For instance, consider their rumoured SQL-like filesystem. Imagine being able to search for a file created by you, on July 23, 1992, of the type: spreadsheet--or something like that. The rumoured Longhorn filesystem will allow queries like that. I have no idea how much MS is going to implement or if end-users will have access to it. Neverthelss, it just provides an example of how people may be more easily able to communicate via SQL-like syntax vs traditional filesystems. Now, this isn't perfect and I don't think Longhorn will be. However, it is moving in the direction where most people can INTERACT BETTER with the system. A database-like filesystem is easier to understand than a hierarchial filesystem. And a future filesystem will be better than the database-like one. And so on.
I think the best example I can come up with is MATLAB. MATLAB should be familiar with anyone in engineering (it is basically an interactive system which allows you to carry out mathematical operations, plot graphs, etc). I was going to say some stuff but I have to get going so I'm going to end this message:(
I think the day will come when people can naturally communicate with computers. People who cannot communicate will be at a disadvantage--similar to illiterate people.
Superstars (they are not called mega stars;) ) wouldn't participate. BUT remember that superstars were once minor stars or was a nobody. The future superstars (who are nobodies now) will likely participate in the system.
I think a lot of work needs to be done to this system. For instance, people should have the right to opt-out. Scammers, leechers, and other individuals up to no good, should be taken into account. And so on.
As an artist, I just see people listening to my tunes, and then giving the voucher to whoever had the fanciest commercial on MTV.
If that was the case, you probably wouldn't be part of the program (you wouldn't sign up). And I guess the system would be reduced to the present system (where a few artists get a lot while many don't).
I have a better idea though, as long as we're using government and texes to redistribute wealth to be spent on services, how about this: We all pay in to a pool with our taxes, and then, if we get sick or injured and need to go to the hospital, we can get the service and the hospital expenses can get paid out of the pool. Why don't we do THAT first, then worry about freaking pop-music records?
Socialist ideals are enemies of capitalism. Since USA is capitalist, don't expect such a thing being passed any time soon. The only time USA ever implemented anything socialist was right after independence (Bill of Rights), and during the Great Depression (New Deal).
In any case, people are proposing ideas for art because of the "MP3 revolution" and the battle with piracy and freedom. In other words, more reseach is being done with respect to music, MP3s, etc.
What you are saying already happens, although it is done convertly. It is called advertising and promotions. When companies advertise, they are spending money to court customers. It's the same thing as what you are saying. In some sense, the artist is "advertising" to get your money. THe only difference here is that it is direct promotion as opposed to indirect ones carried out by businesses and large corporations.
When you watch television, the station is not showing programs to you; they are selling you to the advertisers.
The sad thing is that many people who are in favor of this idea seem to be driven by jealousy.
Are you sure about that? I, being a socialist, will claim it has more to do with ideology than jealousy. It is basically a conflict between egalitarianism and elitism masquerading itself as meritocracy.
Another thing I would like to add is that this conflict has nothing to do with money. Instead, it is all about POWER. Since money is the most powerful entity under capitalism, that is what we talk about. However, if we were living in an alternate society, it could be respect, or fame, or something. What is troublesome to me is not the fact that some people are extremely rich. I'm not materialistic and I could care less (my goal in life is not to live in a big house in a gated community, with a sports car, with a beautiful wife--I mean it, it's not my desire:) ). What is important is that money can be TRANSLATED to power under capitalism. The fact that a rich guy gets preferential treatment from the police, or the fact that a rich guy can avoid paying taxes by declaring himself a corporation, or the fact that you literally need to be a millionaire to run for president, or the fact that rich corporations have greater access to government, is what it is really all about! Money is not important...power is.
I don't begrudge anybody who's successful, as long as they've done it legally and ethically.
I claim that ethics and success are mutually exclusive...
Another thing I like about our society is the notion that if you get the right education and make the right choices, you have the ability to make a lot of money. I'm not about to say that any class of people only "deserve" a certain level of income...
You just contradicted yourself. Do you claim that certain jobs deserve low pay? Or do you not? You cannot say that you believe the "right" education and "right" choices will make you rich, and then claim that you are not making a statment on the class nature of society. Either you support classes or you oppose them!
By the way, if you've read the article and $40K a year sounds like a lot of money to you, it's not.
This is probably the only thing I agree with. I agree that $40k is not much. It has to be adjusted for inflation and cost of living (eg. location). In rural areas, $40k is good but in cities, $40k is just enough. Having said that, the $40k, which is probably the American and Canadian average (in CAN$), is what most people live on. It shows the pathetic state of the world.
It has been said that there are no new ideas for hollywood to explore.. Every origonal idea has been explored and now any movie can be descibed as a combination of older movies.
People who say that are conservatives or moderates. There are a ton of new movies every year. Instead of watching the big blockbusters, why don't you watch the smaller, unheard of, gems?
How many times during a movie have you seen scenes that seem to be trown in that have little or nothing to do with plot development and any other aspect of the movie? or Pointless plot elements... This is the result of the Marketing Formula's that degrades the quality of the movie.. Valid elements are being left out to make room for this marketing mess...
I agree...but you have alternatives. Why not watch some foreign films? Why not watch independent films? Why even rely on Hollywood?
Saleries of Actor's/Actresses are far too high..
Under capitalism, there is no such thing as salaries being too high. There are sports athletes, "consultants", political aides, and CEOs making millions (in some cases 100milllion per year). Under capitalism, whether you make $10million or $100million, it's cool; just like, whether you make $100 or $10000, it's cool too (although minimum wage legislation blocks low wages).
Having said that, I'm an anti-capitalist and hence agree with you that salaries are too high. But changing it would require a REVOLUTION. You can't do it under capitalism (after all, if movie stars make too much? how about CEOs? how about football players? etc)
I think maybe somethime in the not too distance future they will start to realise they are brewing thier demise.
No they wouldn't. My theory of capitalism is that free markets will result in oligopolies and monopolies. So what would happen in this case is that the studios (and others with vested interest) will monopolize the market such that there is no other competition. This is already happening. Hollywood is far more powerful than ever and can run over an independent studio, or a foreign studio any day of the week. So, what I expect is the opposite: instead of they brewing their demise, they will lock up all consumers with their goods.
I highly doubt that. The reason many people don't push the slave theory is because it is very hard to obtain proof.
I, as well as many, believe the slave theory. Egyptian economy ran on slavery. They were probably the first civilization to use slaves en masse. That is pretty much accepted by anthropologists and some sociologists (what is not accepted is whether slaves were used to build the Pyramids). Given that, it is plausible that slaves were used in construction of the Pyramids. Was religion involved? Sure. But it was the slaves doing the work.
Regarding the corporations as governments, I agree, except that there's a huge difference: the government can imprison you, and no corporation can (refrain from obvious comments about Dimitri).
Actually there is very little difference between the two. Corporations gain power either through economics (ie. wealth/money) or through power. If they chose the latter alternative, they will use the government. The most powerful and wealthiest corporations are backed by the government. Think about why.
Hopefully you'll realize one day that you are living in a plutocracy.
I find it funny that capitalists and right wingers like you consider nationalized healthcare to be evil, while endorsing monopolized/oligopolized drug monopolies.
I guess as long as the few corporations that control the drug industry benefit it's find and dandy...
I wonder why you aren't criticizing the computer industry, where we know that many other countries/corporations/regions benefit off the US research. Shouldn't you like try to monopolize the computer industry too?
The problem we have now is that a left leaning sub group is intent on undermining the music community by building an expectation that all music must be free...just like roads, health care and sex must be free.
First of all, I don't know where you get the idea that the free crowd is left-leaning. Some are but not all. Most of the free crowd are moderates and centrists. In any case, the notion of "free" from a leftist perspective is different. The best notion of free you can get, from a leftist view, is subsidization. The library is not free--it is subsidized.
Having said that, leftist ARE in favour of freedom of sex, drugs, etc. In this case, the free applies to freedom and not money (try finding free drugs).
I think you are mixing up the notion of free in the economic sense from free as in freedom.
IMHO, the best model that has appeared in the Internet was the original MP3...that distributed works of unsigned artists. It was a shame that they destroyed their company trying to capture the lame top 40 crowd.
This model is still going strong...err weak. I hope you do realize that a lot of people who download MP3s only download mainstream, big name, artists. Yes, it DID help the smaller ones but the impact was small. As far as I'm concerned, the "MP3 revolution" did not really help the smaller artists.
You're ignoring possibility four, which happens to turn out naturally when you take a cursory look at wormhole based time machines:
You are partly wrong about time travel via wormhole (at least I think so). Wormholes are the ones where you can go back/forward to any period. You don't need a "portal" built before you can travel. Actually, you need a "portal" but it will be on the side that sends the time traveller. The receiving side doesn't need a "portal". So, some dude living 1000 years from now could build the "portal" (or whatever device is required to manipulate the wormhole) and come to the present.
The ones that require a "portal" to be built are other techniques, such as the Tippler cylinder method. These methods don't allow you to travel beyond the point when the "portal" was built.
Please correct me if I'm wrong or you think otherwise. I'm not saying I know what I'm talking about:)
I do find it interesting that if time travel became very common and we didn't have to deal with Reason Two, the rise of technology over the years would decrease incredibly, because time travellers would tell people from the past about new technologies. In essence, every time accessable by time travel would be very similar. (I think Douglas Adams touched on this in one of his books.)
I think people will ban messing with other times. It is just too exploitive (eg. if fresh water is scarce in the future, why not go to the past and start stealing the water from the past?).
In any case, even if people took technology back to the past, I don't think the affected society will evolve in the same way the future society did. If anything, the old society would have jumped without doing research. This will mean one thing: they will have more free time. This will likely result in the "old" world advancing beyond even the new world. For instance, say I came from the future and gave you the best thing we have for generating energy (say a device that converts gravity fields into energy). After I give that to you, you will build upon it. What is to say that you will build upon the device in the same manner someone from the future would.
I am an anti-capitalist and don't think you can get the truth from the markets. Having said that...
The difference is... one is academic while the other is for government purposes. There is a big difference between the two. It's too bad you don't see the difference. In any case, I am not against USA doing it; I am against anyone doing it. It doesn't matter if it is another country or not, same opinion.
I agree that games like these, with no identity checks, are open to cheating. However, I don't understand your cheating method. I just signed up so I don't know the full rules yet, but I don't think you can "funnel money from one account to the next".
Related to your point, I'm wondering if it is possible to launder money via stock exchanges (sort of like what you described, although I think you need more sophisticated methods). Can a drug dealer in Colombia transfer money to some corrupt DEA agent in New York by using stock markets?
Since I actually believe in time travel (no joke), I can answer that.
There are two possibilities:
Possibly I: messing with the past is banned
It may happen that the time travellers may have banned interference with the past. This is quite plausible for many reasons. First of all, it is normal for most humans to feel that they shouldn't be messing with ancient cultures. For example, I don't see too many people going and destroying the pyramids or the Aztec temples and so forth. People do it but it is banned. Similarly, I don't see scientists studying animals do anything harmful to the animals (they avoid altering the animals). If the future society passes laws against it, then it likely wouldn't happen.
In fact, future time travelling societies have to ban it. OTherwise, you would get people who exploit the past (eg. go back in time and steal stuff and bring it to the future; or go back in time and rule over people as a dictator).
Reason II: Multiple universes
Another possibility is that there are multiple universes or "paths of life". Your future self may have gone to the past but not to this universe. He/she may have gone to another world and met another one of "you".
Reason III: Hasn't happened yet or you don't know
A further possibility is that it hasn't happened yet. The future time traveller hasn't come yet. He/she may come say 2 years from now.
Related to that, it may be possible that all this is happening but you don't know. For instance, perhaps all of us--except you--have met our future selves. We are keeping all this a secret from you. How do you know I am not a future time traveller?
The thing is... you expect your politicians to know these things, especially if you are a President or Prime Minister. Your diplomacy is going to be messed up if you don't know about other countries, their cultures, situations, and so on.
Of course, conservatives could care less about other countries. But if you are a liberal, you really want to have the prime minister or president having good relations--and knowledge--about other countries.
Now, I don't know if this was true at Yale in W's time, but these days grades are so inflated at most colleges that not getting a B average is pretty disgraceful, something like the bottom 10% of the class.
That's weird. I went to McMaster University (some Canadian university) and what the profs will generally do is to give a hard test where everyone gets bad marks and then bell-curve it apprpriately. So, you end up within a certain target.
Here is some advice for you (take it for what it's worth): don't worry about school too much but try your best to get a job before you graduate. Once you graduate, it is hard to get a job (no resources, etc). Don't graduate and end up like me, without a job:( (BTW, I'm not saying you should fail your classes or something. All I'm saying is, in your final year, spend your time getting a job instead of trying to ace classes).
Slashdot Mirror
I don't really know how much the porting feature is used by developers. How many X-Box games are there for the PC, and how many PC games are there for the X-Box? I have a feeling that porting to the PC is not a big deal. It's nice but it probably doesn't impact business decisions. The types of games that sell on a PC are generally different from teh consoles. What's the best RTS for the X-Box? How about RPG?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I hope you realize that the Borg are superior to humans. Only reason they lost is due to some lame stories cooked up by the Star Trek authors who were pro-human ;) A species based on assimilation will be extremely strong. Although, due to the their lack of diversity, one weakness will bring them all down.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I have been saying the same thing for a while (although in a much nicer tone :) ). Until you have games on the desktop, home users have little incentive to use Linux.
Having said that, you DO undervalue some apps. Things like office, web browser, etc are very important too.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol I know you have a disclaimer but I think you should change your last name. Daryl McBride has tarnished the McBride name FOREVER ;)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I think he/she meant to say Nvidia instead of ATI...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The author is closer than many here believe him to be. I don't think the author is saying that EVERYONE needs to know EVERYTHING about computers. On the contrary. He is saying that people need to interact better and understand computers better. This does not mean that everyone should have the capability to create complex programs or that they should know the timing and refresh rates of RAM. To be literated, you don't need to read EVERY SINGLE book or understand every language. On the contrary.
:(
All he is saying is that people need to be able to COMMUNICATE with the computer. Ironically, Microsoft is actuallying moving in this direction. For instance, consider their rumoured SQL-like filesystem. Imagine being able to search for a file created by you, on July 23, 1992, of the type: spreadsheet--or something like that. The rumoured Longhorn filesystem will allow queries like that. I have no idea how much MS is going to implement or if end-users will have access to it. Neverthelss, it just provides an example of how people may be more easily able to communicate via SQL-like syntax vs traditional filesystems. Now, this isn't perfect and I don't think Longhorn will be. However, it is moving in the direction where most people can INTERACT BETTER with the system. A database-like filesystem is easier to understand than a hierarchial filesystem. And a future filesystem will be better than the database-like one. And so on.
I think the best example I can come up with is MATLAB. MATLAB should be familiar with anyone in engineering (it is basically an interactive system which allows you to carry out mathematical operations, plot graphs, etc). I was going to say some stuff but I have to get going so I'm going to end this message
I think the day will come when people can naturally communicate with computers. People who cannot communicate will be at a disadvantage--similar to illiterate people.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Superstars (they are not called mega stars ;) ) wouldn't participate. BUT remember that superstars were once minor stars or was a nobody. The future superstars (who are nobodies now) will likely participate in the system.
I think a lot of work needs to be done to this system. For instance, people should have the right to opt-out. Scammers, leechers, and other individuals up to no good, should be taken into account. And so on.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
As an artist, I just see people listening to my tunes, and then giving the voucher to whoever had the fanciest commercial on MTV.
If that was the case, you probably wouldn't be part of the program (you wouldn't sign up). And I guess the system would be reduced to the present system (where a few artists get a lot while many don't).
I have a better idea though, as long as we're using government and texes to redistribute wealth to be spent on services, how about this: We all pay in to a pool with our taxes, and then, if we get sick or injured and need to go to the hospital, we can get the service and the hospital expenses can get paid out of the pool. Why don't we do THAT first, then worry about freaking pop-music records?
Socialist ideals are enemies of capitalism. Since USA is capitalist, don't expect such a thing being passed any time soon. The only time USA ever implemented anything socialist was right after independence (Bill of Rights), and during the Great Depression (New Deal).
In any case, people are proposing ideas for art because of the "MP3 revolution" and the battle with piracy and freedom. In other words, more reseach is being done with respect to music, MP3s, etc.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Are you saying that those who change the laws have bright ideas?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What you are saying already happens, although it is done convertly. It is called advertising and promotions. When companies advertise, they are spending money to court customers. It's the same thing as what you are saying. In some sense, the artist is "advertising" to get your money. THe only difference here is that it is direct promotion as opposed to indirect ones carried out by businesses and large corporations.
When you watch television, the station is not showing programs to you; they are selling you to the advertisers.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The sad thing is that many people who are in favor of this idea seem to be driven by jealousy.
:) ). What is important is that money can be TRANSLATED to power under capitalism. The fact that a rich guy gets preferential treatment from the police, or the fact that a rich guy can avoid paying taxes by declaring himself a corporation, or the fact that you literally need to be a millionaire to run for president, or the fact that rich corporations have greater access to government, is what it is really all about! Money is not important...power is.
Are you sure about that? I, being a socialist, will claim it has more to do with ideology than jealousy. It is basically a conflict between egalitarianism and elitism masquerading itself as meritocracy.
Another thing I would like to add is that this conflict has nothing to do with money. Instead, it is all about POWER. Since money is the most powerful entity under capitalism, that is what we talk about. However, if we were living in an alternate society, it could be respect, or fame, or something. What is troublesome to me is not the fact that some people are extremely rich. I'm not materialistic and I could care less (my goal in life is not to live in a big house in a gated community, with a sports car, with a beautiful wife--I mean it, it's not my desire
I don't begrudge anybody who's successful, as long as they've done it legally and ethically.
I claim that ethics and success are mutually exclusive...
Another thing I like about our society is the notion that if you get the right education and make the right choices, you have the ability to make a lot of money. I'm not about to say that any class of people only "deserve" a certain level of income...
You just contradicted yourself. Do you claim that certain jobs deserve low pay? Or do you not? You cannot say that you believe the "right" education and "right" choices will make you rich, and then claim that you are not making a statment on the class nature of society. Either you support classes or you oppose them!
By the way, if you've read the article and $40K a year sounds like a lot of money to you, it's not.
This is probably the only thing I agree with. I agree that $40k is not much. It has to be adjusted for inflation and cost of living (eg. location). In rural areas, $40k is good but in cities, $40k is just enough. Having said that, the $40k, which is probably the American and Canadian average (in CAN$), is what most people live on. It shows the pathetic state of the world.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
It has been said that there are no new ideas for hollywood to explore.. Every origonal idea has been explored and now any movie can be descibed as a combination of older movies.
People who say that are conservatives or moderates. There are a ton of new movies every year. Instead of watching the big blockbusters, why don't you watch the smaller, unheard of, gems?
How many times during a movie have you seen scenes that seem to be trown in that have little or nothing to do with plot development and any other aspect of the movie? or Pointless plot elements... This is the result of the Marketing Formula's that degrades the quality of the movie.. Valid elements are being left out to make room for this marketing mess...
I agree...but you have alternatives. Why not watch some foreign films? Why not watch independent films? Why even rely on Hollywood?
Saleries of Actor's/Actresses are far too high..
Under capitalism, there is no such thing as salaries being too high. There are sports athletes, "consultants", political aides, and CEOs making millions (in some cases 100milllion per year). Under capitalism, whether you make $10million or $100million, it's cool; just like, whether you make $100 or $10000, it's cool too (although minimum wage legislation blocks low wages).
Having said that, I'm an anti-capitalist and hence agree with you that salaries are too high. But changing it would require a REVOLUTION. You can't do it under capitalism (after all, if movie stars make too much? how about CEOs? how about football players? etc)
I think maybe somethime in the not too distance future they will start to realise they are brewing thier demise.
No they wouldn't. My theory of capitalism is that free markets will result in oligopolies and monopolies. So what would happen in this case is that the studios (and others with vested interest) will monopolize the market such that there is no other competition. This is already happening. Hollywood is far more powerful than ever and can run over an independent studio, or a foreign studio any day of the week. So, what I expect is the opposite: instead of they brewing their demise, they will lock up all consumers with their goods.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I highly doubt that. The reason many people don't push the slave theory is because it is very hard to obtain proof.
I, as well as many, believe the slave theory. Egyptian economy ran on slavery. They were probably the first civilization to use slaves en masse. That is pretty much accepted by anthropologists and some sociologists (what is not accepted is whether slaves were used to build the Pyramids). Given that, it is plausible that slaves were used in construction of the Pyramids. Was religion involved? Sure. But it was the slaves doing the work.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Regarding the corporations as governments, I agree, except that there's a huge difference: the government can imprison you, and no corporation can (refrain from obvious comments about Dimitri).
Actually there is very little difference between the two. Corporations gain power either through economics (ie. wealth/money) or through power. If they chose the latter alternative, they will use the government. The most powerful and wealthiest corporations are backed by the government. Think about why.
Hopefully you'll realize one day that you are living in a plutocracy.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I find it funny that capitalists and right wingers like you consider nationalized healthcare to be evil, while endorsing monopolized/oligopolized drug monopolies.
I guess as long as the few corporations that control the drug industry benefit it's find and dandy...
I wonder why you aren't criticizing the computer industry, where we know that many other countries/corporations/regions benefit off the US research. Shouldn't you like try to monopolize the computer industry too?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The problem we have now is that a left leaning sub group is intent on undermining the music community by building an expectation that all music must be free...just like roads, health care and sex must be free.
First of all, I don't know where you get the idea that the free crowd is left-leaning. Some are but not all. Most of the free crowd are moderates and centrists. In any case, the notion of "free" from a leftist perspective is different. The best notion of free you can get, from a leftist view, is subsidization. The library is not free--it is subsidized.
Having said that, leftist ARE in favour of freedom of sex, drugs, etc. In this case, the free applies to freedom and not money (try finding free drugs).
I think you are mixing up the notion of free in the economic sense from free as in freedom.
IMHO, the best model that has appeared in the Internet was the original MP3...that distributed works of unsigned artists. It was a shame that they destroyed their company trying to capture the lame top 40 crowd.
This model is still going strong...err weak. I hope you do realize that a lot of people who download MP3s only download mainstream, big name, artists. Yes, it DID help the smaller ones but the impact was small. As far as I'm concerned, the "MP3 revolution" did not really help the smaller artists.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You're ignoring possibility four, which happens to turn out naturally when you take a cursory look at wormhole based time machines:
:)
You are partly wrong about time travel via wormhole (at least I think so). Wormholes are the ones where you can go back/forward to any period. You don't need a "portal" built before you can travel. Actually, you need a "portal" but it will be on the side that sends the time traveller. The receiving side doesn't need a "portal". So, some dude living 1000 years from now could build the "portal" (or whatever device is required to manipulate the wormhole) and come to the present.
The ones that require a "portal" to be built are other techniques, such as the Tippler cylinder method. These methods don't allow you to travel beyond the point when the "portal" was built.
Please correct me if I'm wrong or you think otherwise. I'm not saying I know what I'm talking about
I do find it interesting that if time travel became very common and we didn't have to deal with Reason Two, the rise of technology over the years would decrease incredibly, because time travellers would tell people from the past about new technologies. In essence, every time accessable by time travel would be very similar. (I think Douglas Adams touched on this in one of his books.)
I think people will ban messing with other times. It is just too exploitive (eg. if fresh water is scarce in the future, why not go to the past and start stealing the water from the past?).
In any case, even if people took technology back to the past, I don't think the affected society will evolve in the same way the future society did. If anything, the old society would have jumped without doing research. This will mean one thing: they will have more free time. This will likely result in the "old" world advancing beyond even the new world. For instance, say I came from the future and gave you the best thing we have for generating energy (say a device that converts gravity fields into energy). After I give that to you, you will build upon it. What is to say that you will build upon the device in the same manner someone from the future would.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Thanks for the answers...
A born-again Christian is a Christian who has been baptized.
What's the significance of that? Why do people even use that word? Wouldn't all Christians be baptized?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I am an anti-capitalist and don't think you can get the truth from the markets. Having said that...
The difference is... one is academic while the other is for government purposes. There is a big difference between the two. It's too bad you don't see the difference. In any case, I am not against USA doing it; I am against anyone doing it. It doesn't matter if it is another country or not, same opinion.
That ends the evil Marxist view...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I agree that games like these, with no identity checks, are open to cheating. However, I don't understand your cheating method. I just signed up so I don't know the full rules yet, but I don't think you can "funnel money from one account to the next".
Related to your point, I'm wondering if it is possible to launder money via stock exchanges (sort of like what you described, although I think you need more sophisticated methods). Can a drug dealer in Colombia transfer money to some corrupt DEA agent in New York by using stock markets?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Since I actually believe in time travel (no joke), I can answer that.
There are two possibilities:
Possibly I: messing with the past is banned
It may happen that the time travellers may have banned interference with the past. This is quite plausible for many reasons. First of all, it is normal for most humans to feel that they shouldn't be messing with ancient cultures. For example, I don't see too many people going and destroying the pyramids or the Aztec temples and so forth. People do it but it is banned. Similarly, I don't see scientists studying animals do anything harmful to the animals (they avoid altering the animals). If the future society passes laws against it, then it likely wouldn't happen.
In fact, future time travelling societies have to ban it. OTherwise, you would get people who exploit the past (eg. go back in time and steal stuff and bring it to the future; or go back in time and rule over people as a dictator).
Reason II: Multiple universes
Another possibility is that there are multiple universes or "paths of life". Your future self may have gone to the past but not to this universe. He/she may have gone to another world and met another one of "you".
Reason III: Hasn't happened yet or you don't know
A further possibility is that it hasn't happened yet. The future time traveller hasn't come yet. He/she may come say 2 years from now.
Related to that, it may be possible that all this is happening but you don't know. For instance, perhaps all of us--except you--have met our future selves. We are keeping all this a secret from you. How do you know I am not a future time traveller?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Do you really want to live in a world where major world events are influenced by people trying to make a quick easy buck off gambling?
hmm... isn't that what capitalism is all about? I mean, isn't a sizeable chunk of the stock market pure gambling?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
The thing is... you expect your politicians to know these things, especially if you are a President or Prime Minister. Your diplomacy is going to be messed up if you don't know about other countries, their cultures, situations, and so on.
Of course, conservatives could care less about other countries. But if you are a liberal, you really want to have the prime minister or president having good relations--and knowledge--about other countries.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Now, I don't know if this was true at Yale in W's time, but these days grades are so inflated at most colleges that not getting a B average is pretty disgraceful, something like the bottom 10% of the class.
:( (BTW, I'm not saying you should fail your classes or something. All I'm saying is, in your final year, spend your time getting a job instead of trying to ace classes).
That's weird. I went to McMaster University (some Canadian university) and what the profs will generally do is to give a hard test where everyone gets bad marks and then bell-curve it apprpriately. So, you end up within a certain target.
Here is some advice for you (take it for what it's worth): don't worry about school too much but try your best to get a job before you graduate. Once you graduate, it is hard to get a job (no resources, etc). Don't graduate and end up like me, without a job
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Obviously anyone that claims that either The Matrix or Dark City are the best sic-fi philosophical film hasn't seen any true science-fiction film...
For the record, both of those films are more action than sci-fi. Their primary genre is action in my opinion...
Then again, I think I'm in the minority...
Sivaram Velauthapillai